No more seeing what your friends are up to, unless it's on Facebook

[thatbloke]

Facebook have had a rather interesting patent granted that essentially means that social networking sites as we know them (other than facebook) may have to change the way they work drastically, were facebook to suddenly decide that they wanted to start throwing their weight around.

And people wonder why America needs patent reform...

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

So its just a US patent? Im not really down on intern[Strike]a[/Strike](e)tional law.

 

[Kasatka]

Well i'd guess it would mean that other social networking sites with "feeds" wouldn't be able to operate within the US without Facebook's permission, but seeing as how most of these sites are very US centric i could forsee a lot of them being virtually killed off by this.

Not that i'm complaining - i consider Facebook the most useful of the networking sites around.

 

[SgtFury]

You tend to get it that patent's are filled in different regions. US tend to grant first then EU and then other areas.

So if this does go through... don't be surprised to see a EU version at later date filled around the same time.

 

[BiG D]

There has actually been an influx of companies acting as "patent police" this year and having dodgy patents overturned before they're used. I would think this one is an excellent target as other sites already do this...

 

[PsiSoldier]

In some broad sense, does this not cover Xfire's, and Steam's status thing?

 

[thatbloke]

In some broad sense, does this not cover Xfire's, and Steam's status thing?

Also Xbox live, PSN, twitter, pretty much ANYTHING.

It makes me wonder if I should run for President of Earth with a proposal to scrap all laws and replace the whole rulebook with two words: "COMMON SENSE"

 

[Razaak]

Problem with common sense is that it ain't all that common.

 

[Kasatka]

I think if this does come to legal blows, it will help highlight how companies should be treating the web 2.0 medium just as seriously as their physical options. Too many companies seem to see it as a lesser alternative.

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

While im sure it all comes down to money, they could just be taking the oportunity to use their valid claim to the patent to grab it to prevent it being abused by another company on them or any others.

What i dislike about the patent system from observation(ie no actually facts) is that one can make a patent and then sue the ass off older companies, in this i was just thinking that a number of these like xfire, and xboxlive/gwl which are just an extension of msn messenger, i think. and as such are older than facebook, how can you patent/patent enforce what you didnt invent?